The usual image we have of Vikings in England is of wholesale destruction, conquest and slaughter. Religious establishments are assumed to have been sacked and destroyed on a daily basis.
The true picture is probably more varied. For example, Chertsey Abbey was said to have been attacked in the second half of the ninth century causing the death of the abbot Beocca and ninety monks. But the will of Ealdorman Alfred suggests that the Abbey was thriving again by the 880s.
The Vikings were far from the only factor affecting England. In King Ælfred’s view, the raids were the effect of neglect. The monastic life seems to have fallen into disrepute, and religious life had declined in influence and importance. However, numerous monasteries and nunneries did survive through the ninth and tenth centuries.
One of the major consequences of the Viking incursions seems to have been the unification of England and the development of an English identity under Ælfred’s rule.